Let's hear what some "experts" in biochemistry and toxicology have to say about formaldehyde:

"I won't bury the lead (1): last week the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the most prestigious international body for cancer assessment in the world, determined that sufficient evidence exists to link formaldehyde with leukemia, a cancer of the blood or bone marrow. The link with leukemia means that the overall impact of formaldehyde on human cancers is much greater than previously thought."

"The small doses [of formaldehyde] are not insignificant because we are all exposed to chemicals in personal care products every day, several times a day. Those exposures are there in addition to exposures to other toxics in food we eat, water we drink, air we breathe and so forth. All of these exposures add up, and could lead to diseases later in life."

Could you possibly find a worse source of science than NRDC, EWG, or Deepak Chopra?

"Good luck with that"

Josh Bloom, ACSH

So, it will be especially hard for the above "experts" to grasp what I'm about to tell you - not only is your body capable of handling much larger quantities of formaldehyde than you'll ever get from furniture, a soda, or shampoo, but formaldehyde is actually required for cell growth in all living cells. You would be somewhat dead without formaldehyde because of a biochemical pathway called the one-carbon cycle, which uses endogenously produced formaldehyde - and a whole lot of it - to make the essential biomolecules amino acids and DNA.

The one-carbon cycle, which was described in a 2017 Nature paper (2), is a pathway that is responsible for creating, using, and disposing of formaldehyde. Senior author Dr. Ketan Patel, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, explains (emphasis mine):

"We've discovered that some [the formaldehyde] comes from an unexpected source, a key pathway - called the one carbon cycle - that's used to make the building blocks of life, such as DNA and certain amino acids. The one-carbon cycle is a fundamental process which is present in all forms of life, right down to bacteria."

The pathway is rather complicated. Here it is in simplified form (Figure 1). (3)

Figure 1. A simplified view of the one-carbon cycle. Formaldehyde is produced in the body by enzymatic oxidation of Vitamin B9. Once produced it can be detoxified by either of two biochemical reactions, one of which converts it to formate, which is then used to make the DNA and amino acids that cells require. No formate, no DNA.

Two important sources of endogenous (produced internally) formaldehyde are the amino acid serine (4), and tetrahydrofolic acid (TFA), a form of Vitamin B9. Let's focus on the latter.

TFA is oxidized by a liver enzyme. In the process, the carbon atom which is marked by a red oval (Figure 1, left) is converted into formaldehyde. There are two biochemical mechanisms used to detoxify formaldehyde; one is conversion to non-toxic formate by an enzyme called formaldehyde dehydrogenase. The folate that is formed is then incorporated into biomolecules called purines, which are the building blocks of DNA.

The proof of this incorporation was demonstrated by feeding 13C labeled formaldehyde to cultured cells and then seeing in which molecule it ended up. One place was adenine, one of the four DNA bases (Figure 2).

Figure 2. When 13C-labeled formaldehyde is fed to cells it can be traced by analyzing adenine to see whether it is incorporated into the molecule and, if so, where. Isotopic labeling a standard method of determining mechanisms. Source: Patel, et. al. Nature, 548(7669), 549–554 (2017)

So, how much formaldehyde are we talking about? A whole lot. A 2014 report from the European Food Safety Agency EFSA) entitled "Endogenous formaldehyde turnover in humans compared with exogenous contribution from food sources" estimates that the human body makes and processes about 50 grams (50,000 mg (!)) of formaldehyde every day.

Endogenous turnover of formaldehyde was estimated to be approximately 0.61‐0.91 mg/kg bw per minute and 878–1310 mg/kg bw per day (5) assuming a half-life of 1.5 min.

Let's compare that 50 grams to the amount of formaldehyde you might ingest from other sources:

Do you see how ridiculous these formaldehyde scares are? The scientists at the EFSA sure do (emphasis mine):

"At the current [acceptable daily intake] of 40 mg/kg [body weight] per day for aspartame, formaldehyde would be approximately 4 mg/kg [body weight] per day and represent only 0.3‐0.4 % of the endogenous turnover of formaldehyde."

The fact that a chemical that is genotoxic (and also just plain toxic) but is also required in all living cells, speaks volumes about the way our bodies are engineered to make, use, and protect ourselves from formaldehyde. The ability of our livers to detoxify a wide variety of chemicals explains we aren't all dropping dead from the multitude of chemicals to which we are routinely exposed.

Time to find another phony chemical scare, EWG. This one is stale. Probably wasn't preserved properly. I hear formaldehyde is pretty good for that.

Dr. Josh Bloom, the Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, comes from the world of drug discovery, where he did research for more than 20 years. The field of drug discovery involves chemistry, biochemistry, toxicology, and pharmacology - skills that he has used to write on a wide variety of topics since he joined ACSH in 2010. One of the topics he has tackled is the so-called "opioid crisis." He is now recognized as an expert in this area and was the first journalist to write a nationally published opinion piece about the unintended consequences of a governmental crackdown on prescription pain medications (New York Post, 2013). Since that time he has published more than 20 op-eds in regional and national newspapers on different aspects of the crisis. In that same year, he testified at an FDA hearing, where he noted that fentanyl was the real danger, something that would be proven years later. At that time almost no one had heard of the drug.

He was also the first writer (2016) to study, dissect and ultimately debunk the manipulated statistics used by the CDC to justify its recommendations for opioid prescribing, which have resulted in Draconian requirements for prescribing pain medications as well as government-mandated, involuntary tapering of patients receiving opioid treatment, both of which have caused great harm and needless suffering to chronic pain patients. His 2016 article, "Six Charts Designed to Confuse You," is the seminal work on CDC deception and has been adopted by patient advocacy groups and individuals and has been sent to governors and state legislatures.

Dr. Bloom earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Virginia, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. His career in drug discovery research began at Lederle Laboratories, which was acquired by Wyeth in 1994, which itself was acquired by Pfizer in 2009. During this time he participated in research in a number of therapeutic areas, including diabetes and obesity, antibiotics, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and oncology. His group discovered the novel antibiotic Tygacil®, which was approved by the FDA for use against resistant bacterial infections in 2005. He is the author of 25 patents, and 35 academic papers, including a chapter on new therapies for hepatitis C in Burger’s Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery and Development, 7th Edition (Wiley, 2010), and has given numerous invited lectures about how the pharmaceutical industry really works.

Dr. Bloom joined the American Council on Science and Health in 2010 as ACSH’s Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and has since published more than 60 op-eds in numerous periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New Scientist, The New York Post, National Review Online, The Boston Herald, and The Chicago Tribune, and given numerous radio and television interview on topics related to drugs and chemicals. In 2014, Dr. Bloom was invited to become a featured writer for the site Science 2.0, where he wrote more 75 pieces on a broad range of topics.

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"Big Fears Little Risks" is a documentary, but unlike most of what you see on places like Netflix, it is pro-science, and not scaremongering trace chemicals, food, or the modern world. We instead are going to take back the discourse from trial lawyers and the trade groups they use to profit from fear.

The American Council on Science and Health is a research and education organization operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are fully tax-deductible. ACSH does not accept government grants or contracts, nor do we have an endowment. We raise our funds each year primarily from individuals and foundations.